With a crowd of about 50 demonstrators in front of the county court house, waving signs – saying No Fracking, Stop Fracking, and Ban Fracking – the Boulder County Commission last month voted to place a one-year ban oil and gas development.

And today, the City of Longmont is set to vote on its own 81-page ordinance for drilling within its boundaries. A few days ago, a street-corner rally was held downtown by residents waving signs at passing motorists.

“We don’t think fracking has any place in an urban setting,” Judith Blackburn, a retired college professor and one of the protesters, told the Longmont Times-Call.

Now all those sign-wavers might seem like grass-roots activists, or greenies, or the not-in-my-back-yard crowd, but the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, the state’s main industry trade group, says they are “special interests.”

Laura Keeney writes about aerospace and airlines for The Post. When she's not at work, you can usually find her taking in live music, reading voraciously, or doing something science-related and nerdy. She also loves The Clash ... a lot.

Emilie Rusch covers retail and commercial real estate for The Post. A Wisconsin native and Mizzou graduate, she moved to Colorado in 2012. Before that, she worked at a small daily newspaper in South Dakota. It's the one with Mount Rushmore.